1. Field of Disclosure
This invention relates to barriers for protecting shorelines from floodwaters and to systems for elevating the barriers into position for protective duty.
2. Background
Floodwaters are a major source of property damage. Floodwaters may come from a surface flooding caused heavy rains, or from a rising body of water, such as storm surge of sea waters driven by hurricane or tropical storm or from swollen rivers rising above flood stage from snow melt or heavy rains. Flooding in coastal areas resulting from tropical storms, hurricanes, cyclones or typhoons produces death and destruction. Storm surge is the major cause of flooding. This was all too painfully shown when on Oct. 29, 2012 tropical storm Sandy struck New York City, its suburbs, and Long Island. Supplemented by a high tide, the storm surge was approximately 14 feet above mean low tide, overtopping seawalls and bulkheads lining Manhattan and other waterfront boroughs, flooding many tunnels, damaging electrical equipment, costing at least 48 lives and in effect shutting down the City. Damages and economic losses across New York were estimated to be at least $33 billion and in neighboring New Jersey, $36.8 billion.
The inventor of embodiments of the invention described herein has disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,623,209 a flood guard barrier employing water buoyant rigid flood barrier panels that are self-actuating. Although this barrier is self actuating, if there is sufficient warning of a flooding event, a system for raising a flood guard panel in advance of the arrival of the flooding event is an additional benefit. In addition a system for raising the flood guard panel independently of a flooding event allows the flood guard panel to be conveniently raised for servicing and repairs.